If I was honest I expected it to be a damp squib. Protests normally promise much and deliver little.

And there was a chance we might not have even found the demonstration site at Salmabad at all - it was 17 kilometres north of the Bahrain Grand Prix track and way outside the capital Manama.

Police roadblocks closed off all the major routes into the village which was staging the third and final day of funeral marches for local cameraman Ahmed Ismael Hassan Al Samadi, who was killed in the troubles.

But by a little persistence, off-roading and luck we found ourselves in the village an hour after the start time.

The marchers turned out to be mainly women dressed from head to foot in their traditional black abaya.

Men and boys, some probably as young as, nine or 10, lingered on the fringes.

They marched a few hundred yards, turned a corner and marched down a local road. A megaphone blared out a message in Arabic and the rank and file chanted what I was told was “Down with Hamad” (the monarch).

“Just wait a while and the party will start. The police will come,” said a passing protester.

Behind the marchers' concrete blocks, bricks and debris were spread across the road. Teenagers and men appeared carrying molotov cocktails. One in hand and another in the back pocket.

I could smell the petrol as they walked past me.

I had deliberately chosen an unbranded white shirt to avoid offence. “White shirt makes you an easy target. You stand out,” I was told.

Almost as one they turned, suddenly, and retraced their steps. I was mystified. Police were gathered behind a block of flats, I was told, but the crossroads ahead was deserted.

Then the police arrived. Women play a large part in the current protests but this group morphed from mainly women to almost exclusively men, from 2,000 to a few hundred. But one woman I saw was head to toe in black wearing a teargas mask.

They ran towards the police, making sure their scarves were in place, and it was difficult to know who reacted first. There were petrol bombs, flashes of fire as they hit the ground, a few loud explosions and trails of smoke into the sky as teargas was used.

The protesters fragmented and ran, smoke starting to billow around them.

Protestors wearing masks and balaclavas run from the police during a protest against the Bahrain F1 Grand Prix (Image: Getty)

When the bulk turned like a herd of wildebeest and headed for buildings and cars behind me, I suddenly found myself in the middle of the action.

I was unsure whether to remain still, wave my passport or my notebook at the advancing riot police, or run.

A human rights activist had allegedly spent six hours in custody the night before after being caught in a police raid.

A canister landed nearby. I ran.

Our car had been in a line of a few dozen. By the time we reached it there was only ours. As I hit the door button another canister landed on the other side of the car, five feet away, billowing smoke.

Ian Parkes from the Press Association was with me. Because the smoke was creeping up around the door pillars he could not get into the passenger side and jumped in the back behind me.

I slid into the driving seat ready to drive off. I stared at the automatic gear stick and the letters D, N, P, R but couldn’t remember what any of them stood for. Was P for power, pause or park? Was R for release?

I coughed and sneezed from the teargas.

I snatched a gear and we sped away. A few hundred yards later I stopped on a different side of the open ground that had just been the scene of the conflict.

I was told there was a makeshift clinic nearby in case of injury because those hurt and taken to hospital risk being arrested, but I didn’t see it and there appeared to be no injuries this time.

Protestor against the Bahrain F1 Grand Prix shows an empty CS gas canister used to dispel the crowds (Image: AFP)

Protesters were disappearing into the buildings and alleyways on my right. Riot police, all in dark blue, maybe 15-20 of them, were advancing, line abreast, across the open ground.

Giant wheelie bins were ablaze, clumps of wood on fire, the roads littered with blocks of concrete.

I was unsure whether to go or stay but chose the former and we raced away again.

I expected them to shepherd us off the protest site completely but once we had moved, they stopped where we had been and took position.

Throughout, police helicopters hovered overhead.

After that the riot police marched into the streets of Salmabad, sweeping away the last signs of protest.

Not once during the event had Formula 1 been in evidence. Just “unhappy and angry” people.

When I tweeted as much one activist explained there was much to be unhappy about.

She claimed there were nightly sweeps of local villages and brutal arrests with more than 80 people in custody from the last week all as a clampdown against possible trouble at the Grand Prix.

The increased repression, she said, is only fuelling anger at the ruling monarchy.

Another told me that even among the ruling royal family there is division over the Grand Prix. He said the driving force was Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad rather than the monarch, his father, Hamad.

Protestors took to the streets with flags and banners in protest against the race, but were forced back by the police (Image: Getty)

With this protest the last for the dead cameraman, I was told, the focus would turn on Formula 1.

The authorities have not helped that in using the banner “UniF1ed” in all their promotional material.

To some F1 and the ruling monarchy are the same thing.

The two trigger points for the next few days, I’ve been told, would be the Grand Prix itself and the condition of hunger striker, Abdul Hadi Al Khawaja, who has reportedly been transferred to an army hospital and is said to be close to death.

The authorities have refused his family or lawyer access to him, increasing fears he may already have died.

Activists say 60 sportsmen from national teams, basketball, tennis, football have been arrested over the last year and 15 still remain in custody.

An Amnesty International report published in full today, and covered in my last column (

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), said there continued to be a human rights “crisis” in Bahrain, detailing systematic torture, unnecessary force and abuse of power.

And it warned there was a danger the international community would think all wrongs had been righted simply because the Grand Prix had gone ahead.

Protest groups have promised "Two Days of Rage" during the Grand Prix weekend (Image: Getty)

Protesters responded with a detailed list of demonstrations which will take the issue ever closer to the F1 venue itself, culminating in "Two Days of Rage" for the Saturday and Sunday of the race weekend – with unspecified acts threatened.

The authorities and leading Formula 1 figures claim there is no need for concern and all issues are under control.

So what is to there to worry about? Marchers and banners don’t amount to much, surely?

Around a week ago seven police were injured in a bomb blast, three of them seriously.

That one incident has changed the nature of the conflict, escalating it to a level that was hitherto unimaginable.

One activist told me: “The Grand Prix is a once in a year opportunity to be heard.

“No-one wants to target journalists or teams or fans; this is not Syria or the Lebanon, we are not schooled in warfare in Bahrain.